Insight Series

Retail teams, marketing execs and c-level officers all expect near-instant access to seamless data derived from a variety of resources. And who does the CG organization turn to? IT. In order to balance their daily IT problem-solving responsibilities with their ever-growing data provision responsibilities, most CG organizations purchase a demand data solution. But here’s...

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog, Eddie Yoon points out an important distinction — demand and sales data are not the same. Yes, retail teams — for the most part — have realized the value of business intelligence (which is often called demand intelligence). But Yoon makes an interesting and important distinction. “Sales is what you buy. Demand is what you want. Growth comes from bringing the two together.”

Today, the real opportunity for sales growth is in analyzing historical POS data in context, using a business intelligence (BI) solution, and pairing that with...

A few months ago, Wal-mart’s chief merchandising officer Duncan Mac Naughton noted that the mega chain could boost U.S. sales by $5 billion by keeping its store shelves more fully stocked. While it was admitted that that number was an “off-the-cuff” one, the point is well taken — customers cannot buy what is not there. And empty shelves can drive consumers to take their business elsewhere.

Just how much are you losing when an item isn’t on the shelf?

SOLYS offers an Instock Trends/Volume Comparison Graph that shows when instocks dip as well as the effect of that dip on unit...

Go big, or go home. Is that how you approach seasonal promotions? After all, a seasonal promotional — like back-to-school — is not only an opportunity to drive incremental sales, it’s an opportunity to launch new SKUs toward a very targeted audience. If you don’t get the product mix right, it can unfortunately be a very public arena in which to learn a few hard POS lessons.

That’s why you have to take a deep dive into POS data following a seasonal promotion — to ferret out the wins and losses. Because seasonal promotions are planned well in advance you have to act fast —...

Sometimes we need to reassess our perspective, and thus our assumptions. Over time, retail teams start to make assumptions about demographic groups — who prefers what scent, which consumer is brand loyal, what age group will hunt for a discount. Chances are you’re in a demographic rut and don’t even know it.